


Four Funerals & a Wedding - a caryl one-shot

by tender_is_the_ghost



Category: Carol Peletier - Fandom, The Walking Dead (TV), caryl - Fandom, daryl dixon - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Canon, F/M, Friendship/Love, Funeral, Implied Relationships, Love, Wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 07:59:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2805302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tender_is_the_ghost/pseuds/tender_is_the_ghost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four funerals that almost broke Daryl and the wedding that gave him hope for his future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Funerals & a Wedding - a caryl one-shot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jen131](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jen131/gifts).



** **

 

**~~~~~ Failure ~~~~~**

Daryl had yelled for her not to look, barely able to pull his own eyes from the horror unfolding, and she had torn free of his arms. She had railed against him, slapping her fists against him as she had stumbled away and, later, he had thought of the strength and courage that must have taken for her to face off against him.

He finds her in the RV and she gives him nothing more than a single look to acknowledge his presence. She’s no longer crying as if there are no more tears for her to give and he silently takes a seat, knowing he’ll never have the words that she needs to hear but wanting her to know that he’s there for her in his own way. When Lori opens the door to the RV and tells them in hushed tones that they’re ready to bury Sophia, Carol refuses to go, telling them that thing is not her daughter, that Sophia died long ago in the woods. He listens to her reasoning but he doesn’t understand it. He’s angry that she won’t say goodbye to her own daughter after all they’ve been through. It doesn’t seem right, he thinks, but then again, a mother burying her child is never right. So, he goes for her and is the last one to leave Sophia’s grave after the service.

Carol is gone from the RV when he returns to check on her and panic settles on him like a shroud, sending him racing from building to building in search of her. He’s about to go looking for Rick to help him when he hears Shane calling her name and he rounds the corner of the tool shed to see Shane leading her to sit at the water pump. Unseen, he watches as Shane tenderly washes the dirt from Carol’s hands and arms and he wonders where she’s been to get so filthy. Something stirs in the pit of his stomach as he watches the ease with which Shane comforts Carol, an unfamiliar feeling for him but one he knows nonetheless. Disgusted with himself, he turns away, wanting more than anything to be the one to take care of her but frustrated because he doesn’t know how.

When she comes to him that night, out at his camp away from the farm, he lashes out at her, refusing to hear the words that she’s telling him. His anger boils over into a furious tirade that scares him to his core. When she’s gone he withdraws into himself, his mind replaying her words, hearing her faith in him and wondering why she has it. But somehow by morning he’s convinced himself that what she was saying might be true, maybe he has earned his place in the group after all. Ignoring his inner voice which, as always speaks in Merle’s mocking tones, he forces himself to enter the farmhouse and rejoin the group even though his instincts are telling him to cut and run. He slips uncomfortably into the room, not meeting anyone’s eye until he feels her gaze on him and he raises his head to her. The look of pride and relief on her face in that moment simultaneously embarrasses the hell out of him but also fills him with a warmth he’s never felt before but it’s something he thinks he could get used to.

 

**~~~~~ Sorrow ~~~~~**

Daryl stands quietly at the back of the group, having placed himself close to Carol without giving it a conscious thought, his body instinctively gravitating to hers whenever she's in his reach. The strong words of Rick's eulogy wash over him, only half of them making it through to his brain. He’s lost, somewhere deep inside himself where he’s replaying Dale’s death on an infinite loop. They’d butted heads on more than one occasion but there was no denying the respect and admiration he’d felt for the older man. The whole group had been touched by his wisdom and his counsel which is why Daryl hadn’t been able to let Rick end Dale’s life. It was too much, following so soon after Carl getting shot and the loss of Sophia and Daryl couldn’t stand to see the anguish on Rick's face as he'd stood over their fallen comrade. So he had done it instead, taken the burden from Rick's shoulders, given the group his support in the only way he thought he could.

His mind turns back further, tossing up remembered snatches of the past few days...

He sees the look on Carol’s face after his conversation with Randall, not knowing whether she was disappointed with him or what he'd had to do. While it bothered him to have her think of him as some kind of mindless thug, he knew he couldn’t feel guilty for doing what he needed to protect them all. To protect her. That was all that mattered to him.

He thinks of Dale approaching him, away from the others, Daryl's first thought being that Carol had sent him to bring Daryl back into the fold. He had been surprised to find that Dale had come of his own volition and he was even more surprised when he heard him asking for Daryl’s counsel and support. This wasn’t him, people had never cared about his opinion before. He was nothing – nobody that mattered. But Dale had pushed past his redneck bluster to plead his case, ask for his assistance, and he had actually listened when Daryl had spoken. By the end of the conversation, Daryl's head was buzzing and he was starting to think that maybe he could be the person they were seeing in him. Maybe who he was before didn’t matter anymore and his thoughts and actions now were what counted. He had an opportunity here to let his past go and re-invent himself into the man he’d always wanted to be, was he really going to let that chance go? He had told Dale that he didn’t care but he knew in his heart that this was a lie. As broken as their group might be, he wanted to help fix it, to be a part of it if he could.

Rick's voice brings him back into the present and he shifts his sight to stare at Carol’s stoic profile, his eyes tracing the outline of her determined face. He makes a vow to himself in that moment that it will never be her that he sees put into the ground. He knows that to lose her would be to lose a part of himself and, as long as he has a breath left in his body he’ll expend it to keep her alive.

 

**~~~~~ Devastation ~~~~~**

Daryl has no concept of how long he's been sitting at the water’s edge, his mind only peripherally aware of his surroundings. All that he can see, all that he can hear, is her face and her voice consuming his mind. His hands turn over the soft material of her scarf that he'd found next to T-Dog’s body, pulling it gently through his grasp over and over. He knows that the others are back at the prison right now, holding a service for her and T-Dog but he couldn’t be there, he'd had to get away. When Glenn had stopped him, tears shining in his dark eyes and anguish etched in the lines of his face, Daryl had told him he couldn’t stand at an empty grave, it just wasn’t right. So he had left, finding himself lost among the trees, not really caring where he was until he had stumbled across a small pond. There, at the edge, seeming to mock him with their angelic beauty, he'd found a cluster of Cherokee Roses. A lone walker had been shuffling between him and the blooms, its decaying body reviling him even more than normal. He had drawn his knife, dispatching it with a vicious fury, his rage and impotence pouring into every blow until it lay decimated at his feet. Stumbling over the corpse, he had fallen to his knees in front of the soft, white flowers, his body wracked with uncontrollable grief, and there he had stayed.

A soft breeze rustles through the trees around him and he tilts his head back, the sunlight sparkling through the leaves above his head to dance in front of his eyes. He thinks of the vow he’d made himself, to keep her safe at all costs and his heart aches at the guilt he feels for failing to uphold that vow. He wonders how he can go on without her, surprised by how ingrained she’d become into his existence already, but then he thinks of what a survivor she was, a fighter who hadn’t given up, not even after Sophia. He knows that if she could see him now, she’d be pissed as hell at him for sitting on his ass and wallowing in his own self-pity while the others needed him. She’d be telling him to pull himself together and go be the man she’d always believed him to be.

Scrubbing one hand roughly over his damp cheeks, he takes a deep breath and exhales it slowly. For a brief moment he raises her scarf to his face, losing himself in the scent of her trapped in its folds, and then he gets to his feet. Bending, he plucks a single bloom from the bush, folds it carefully inside her scarf and tucks it inside his shirt, close to his heart. With a new determination in his step, he walks away from the pond, never looking back. It’s time to pay his respects, rejoin his family and try to live up to the hopes that Carol had had for him.

 

**~~~~~ Redemption ~~~~~**

When his grief had released him from its iron fist, Daryl had shakily climbed to his feet, looking down at the remnants of what had once been his brother and had set about burying him. He had toiled alone, digging the grave, carrying the body and taking care of the last remaining walkers the Governor’s group had missed. It seemed fitting somehow, that it was just him and Merle as it had always been when they were growing up. His brother had always tried to protect him but there were times when he hadn’t been there either. Daryl would always carry the scars on his back as a reminder of Merle’s absence when he had needed him the most but it had never clouded the love he had for his brother.

Arriving back at the prison the next morning, Carol had been the first to greet him, running to open the gate and let him back in. She had ushered him inside and he had let her fuss around him, eating the food she placed in front of him although he didn’t want it. He had drawn strength from her presence at his side while he recounted what he had found after he had passed Michonne in the woods. The others had made suitably sympathetic noises of condolence for his loss but he had tuned them out. He knew that they meant well, understood that they were sad for the fact that he was hurting, but he also knew how they’d felt about Merle so their sentiments seemed kind of hollow to him. Instead he had focused on the warmth radiating from Carol’s skin where she had sat with her shoulder pressed tightly against his, shoring him up when he really needed her. He had listened as Rick and Hershel had laid out their plans for the governor’s impending attack but his mind’s eye was still staring at an unmarked grave in the shadow of the building where his brother had died.

He was sitting on the cold concrete of the prison yard, his poncho laid across his lap to ward off the first bite of winter in the air. The ground surrounding him was littered with objects he had pulled from the saddle bags of Merle’s bike parked in front of him. He'd never actually emptied them before in all the time he'd been using the bike since Merle’s disappearance in Atlanta. He'd rummaged through them on occasion, looking for something he knew Merle had stashed in there but pretty much he'd left them as they were. He knew it was silly but a part of him felt like if he he'd gone through and cleaned them out to use for his own belongings, it would have been almost as if he'd given up hope that Merle was still out there somewhere. But now there was no doubt in his mind, Merle was gone and he wasn’t coming back, and Daryl had gotten the notion into his head that sorting through the accumulated junk in Merle’s saddle bags might bring him some kind of closure. Instead, he found himself sitting, trapped in a circle of reminders of his brother that he didn’t know how to get rid of.

As always, he senses Carol’s presence at his side, not even looking up as he speaks to her of his surprise at Merle’s sacrifice. She answers him in the soft, reassuring tones that always serve to sooth his mind and reaches down a hand to pull him, not only from the ground but from the feelings that are threatening to overwhelm him. She releases his hand with a squeeze once he's up but keeps close to him as she leads him out of the yard and across the field to the small graveyard they’ve built on the far side. As they approach, he can see a new addition to the existing line, the freshly-turned earth standing out in rich contrast to the weathered grass around it. He drops to one knee in the dirt, his fingers tracing the lettering of his brother’s name which has been burned into the wooden marker at the grave’s head. From behind him, Carol’s quiet words surround him as she explains that she had told Rick that Merle had deserved a place with them as much as any of the others and Rick had agreed with her. She tells Daryl that, in the end, Merle had chosen them, had chosen Daryl, and that was something Daryl should hold onto and be proud of.

Daryl’s eyes slip to the side then, resting on the empty grave beside Merle’s, the faded petals of a Cherokee Rose still visible in the dirt as a reminder of what could have been. He knows that even though he may have lost the last of his blood family, there was still a light in his life that was never going to be extinguished.

 

**~~~~~ Hope ~~~~~**

Daryl feels nervous but he can’t really put his finger on why. He shouldn’t be really, this day was inevitable after all, everyone had known that from the start. He looks around the usually stark grey walls of the small prison chapel, taking in the brightly-colored ribbons and the abundance of flowers adorning every available surface. He had secretly thought it was ridiculous at first, to spend this much time and effort on the traditions of a world that was gone, but he could see how much it meant to the bride-to-be so he had let himself get caught up in all of it. He had made endless runs, scouring the few wedding stores in the area until he had brought back practically everything he could find including the suit that he’s wearing, an outfit that he’d never worn before in his life and never imagined he would. He scans the sea of faces filling the pews on either side of the aisle, most of them unfamiliar to him still, feeling that the room is too crowded. He's still not used to being around so many people and the situation he's in now is only exacerbating his discomfort. He spots Glenn and Rick at the front of the room, Rick beckoning him forward, and Daryl marches straight down the aisle to the altar not looking at the people on either side of him and stopping with his back to the audience when he reaches the front.

Rick claps him on the shoulder and Daryl can’t help but return the wide smile Rick gives him, something he hasn’t seen on his friend’s face in a long time. Somebody gives a loud cough from the corner behind the altar and he glances over to see Michonne giving the ready signal before pressing play on the boom box she has sitting on the table next to her. He’s so stunned for a moment by her appearance in a rich burgundy dress, her hair pulled back by a matching scarf, that he doesn’t move and Glenn has to elbow him into position. As the first strains of the Wedding March fill the chapel, Daryl looks properly out over the crowd, his mind trying to reconcile the bizarre reality in front of him of everyone clean and dressed to the nines with their usual apocalyptic attire. The door at the back of the room opens, a hush falling as all eyes turn that way and Daryl is surprised to find that his heart is beating just a little faster than normal.

Beth is first down the aisle leading a troop of bridesmaids in her wake, every young girl from Woodbury appearing to have been recruited into the wedding party. They move down the aisle like a wave, their dresses a rainbow of colors, scattering rose petals as they pass and then line up on the opposite side of the altar. There’s a collective intake of breath from everyone in the room as the next two figures appear in the doorway and a beaming Hershel leads the bride into view. Daryl smiles widely again, thankful that nobody is looking in his direction, as Maggie appears to glide down the aisle, the shimmering white of her dress giving her an unearthly glow. He can feel Glenn shaking beside him so he leans a little closer, nudging his friend with his elbow, and hears him exhale loudly. Once Hershel has handed Maggie off at the altar, Rick clears his throat and the ceremony begins. Rick tells the crowd that, as they don’t have a minister, he found a book in the prison library and ordained himself and he hopes that nobody minds. Judging by the response he gets back, nobody minds at all and he smiles before proceeding. Daryl listens carefully to Rick as he talks, waiting nervously for his part as best man and keeper of the rings. When Glenn had asked him, he had been shocked and honored, the simple gesture speaking volumes as a reminder of how far they had come together.

With his part in the ceremony completed with no hitches, Daryl relaxes a little and that’s when he becomes aware of somebody’s eyes on him. Turning slightly so that he can look at the crowd, he immediately locks eyes with Carol. She’s seated in the front row on Maggie’s side and he wonders how he could have missed her up until this point, putting the blame on his nervousness about being a part of the wedding. His breath stills in his chest as he takes in the long, dark purple dress she’s wearing. It’s a simple cut, nothing fancy or elaborate in its style, but on her it looks stunning. A large purple flower is tucked behind her ear, nestled into the soft short curls of her hair, and he finds his gaze drawn to a glittering silver chain laying against her throat, the charm hanging from it just too small for him to see. He stares at her, mesmerized, his heart straining in his chest as she smiles shyly across at him and he thinks that he could stand there forever and just bathe in that smile.

His plan is short-lived, however, as a sudden cheer rises up from the crowd and he realizes that the wedding is over and Glenn and Maggie are kissing passionately in front of a clapping Rick. He adds his own voice to the noise, accompanying it with an ear-splitting whistle which just has everyone clapping harder. Michonne hits play on the boom box again and everyone files outside, following the bride and groom into the warm evening air. The prison yard has been festooned with Chinese lanterns and Tiki torches and the wooden picnic tables are all sporting white linen tablecloths with flowering centerpieces in honor of the event. As people mill about, helping themselves to the food laid out on the tables and then finding places to sit, Daryl finds himself on the periphery of it all, content to just watch the scene in front of him. He's sitting half hidden in the shadows but it comes as no surprise to him when Carol makes a beeline directly for him, balancing two plates in one hand and two cups in the other. He rises to meet her, helping her with her burden and then waiting until she’s seated before he takes his place next to her.

They eat in companionable silence, watching the party unfold around them, the bride and groom enjoying their first dance once everyone has eaten. Hershel and Glenn both gives speeches but nobody looks to him, it was the one tradition he made quite clear that he wouldn’t be following. Daryl keeps sneaking glances at Carol from the corner of his eye, finding his peace in the look of joy on her face as she watches their friends celebrating their lives together. He wishes, like he has a thousand times before, that he had the words to tell her what she means to him and what he hopes he means to her. Unexpectedly, in a flash of riotous color and high-pitched giggles, the group of bridesmaids runs past their secluded spot and he feels Carol tense beside him as they disappear across the yard. With a heavy hand wrapped around his heart, he realizes that she must be thinking of Sophia, how she would have most certainly have been a part of the festivities had she been there.

Impulsively he reaches out to take hold of her hand, wrapping it tightly in his and caressing her smooth skin gently with the ball of his thumb. He wants her to know that he's there for her as she's been for him so many times in the past. He feels her surprise at his touch as she turns towards him, her eyes sparkling in the light from the lanterns and his attention is caught once again by the glint of silver around her neck. Now that he’s up close he can clearly see that the charm hanging from the chain is a perfectly rendered miniature crossbow, cocked and loaded, and he feels his heart trip-hammering in his chest as he looks back up to her face. She’s giving him that shy smile again and, as she twines her fingers around his, he thinks that maybe this wedding symbolizes more than just the union of Glenn and Maggie’s lives but also the next chapter for their group as a whole and, if the woman by his side is willing, maybe a new future for him and Carol too.

 


End file.
